The EA Forums have a confirmation of widespread suspicions that Battlefield 3 will not be sold through Valve's Steam platform (thanks Planet Battlefield). As was theorized, there is a terms of service conflict at the root of this because DICE's military shooter will include the ability to purchase DLC from within the game:

Gamers can pre-order Battlefield 3 at Origin.com as well as over 100 digital retailers worldwide. EA offers games to all major download services. Unfortunately, Steam has adopted a set of restrictive terms of service which limit how developers interact with customers to deliver patches and other downloadable content. No other download service has adopted these practices.

We are intent on providing Battlefield 3 players with the best possible experience no matter where they purchase or play their game, and are happy to partner with any download service that does not restrict our ability to connect directly with our consumers. We hope to work out an agreement where Steam can carry Battlefield 3; meanwhile, gamers can pick from the more than 100 digital retailers listed at http://www.battlefield.com/digitaldownload, or go to http://www.origin.com.

WaltC wrote on Aug 7, 2011, 13:06:Frankly, though, it doesn't strike me that selling games through Steam, but not Steamworks, would be in Valve's best interests at all. Valve's rejection of B3C makes even more sense in light of this information.

What are you talking about?

Steamworks is an optional API granting standard Steam integration and features. Steam is a digital delivery platform that requires that games it distributes must be patched through Steam. A recent addition to the rules is that the DLC for the game must also be sold through Steam. Neither of these rules involve Steamworks.

Now what about "Valve's rejection of B3C makes even more sense in light of " BC2 not using Steamworks?

edit: Corrected B3C, wondering to myself, "How the fuck could I make that mistake" only to then realize it wasn't my mistake

I think what Walt was saying (wait, I thought you preferred Walter?) is that selling a game through Steam that doesn't utilize Steamworks DRM would be more of a headache to Valve than one that did (see also:Fallout 3 on Steam with GFWL, Splinter Cell: Conviction on Steam with Ubi-Always-On-DRM, etc.)

Those damn games were a nightmare due to in-game DLC, wrapped in DRM, which were purchasable in two separate stores. While you could say Valve (or EA) is greedy and pushing an agenda, the other reason may be simple: in the past it's tended to be, for lack of better words, a total clusterfuck, that pissed off more people than it made happy.

That said, I take no shame in stating Steam in my preferred on-line store. They have the most robust client, cleanest integration of useful gamer-centric features, and, quite frankly, have been the only publisher/store firmly in the corner of the PC gamer. So when it looks like a title will avoid them, I usually avoid the title.